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Beyond exploiting class resentments, the Carter campaign cozied up to the state's segregationists. He never made remarks that could be interpreted as racist, but he visited one of the private academies that had sprung up in response to integration, and he paid a call on a notorious segregationist publisher who subsequently endorsed him. Carter said that he would permit George Wallace to speak at the state house, and he had kind words for Maddox, who was running for Lieutenant Governor. Many white liberals in Georgia were aghast; they have never forgiven him.
It can be argued that Carter was as liberal on race issues as he could be without losing his supporters and thus the election. He did make a point of emphasizing the more respectable traits of his rural constituents. "Georgians are conservatives," he later explained, "and I told them that conservatism and racism are not the same thing. We talked about the positive aspects of conservatism: the opposition to big government; the flag, patriotism. We made that pitch hundreds of times. This gave me a rapport with the voters, and it did not remind them or make them think of past deficiencies."
Elected by a landslide vote, Carter appeared to be a changed man in office—leading to accusations that he had misled the voters. In his inaugural address, he proclaimed: "The time for racial discrimination is over. No poor rural white or black person should ever have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity of an education, a job or simple justice." Maddox cried foul and started sniping at Carter. He has never stopped. He even pursued Carter to New Hampshire last month to denounce him as "the McGovern of '76" and "the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of '76."
Unlike Sanders, Carter appointed blacks to posts at every level of state government. (Sanders today concedes: "Carter is far more liberal than I ever was.") He set up a biracial "disorder unit" of various experts to mediate clashes between blacks and whites. Since Georgia did not have federal referees to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Carter deputized all the high school principals in the state as registrars so that they could sign up voters at school. He overhauled the state prison and mental hospitals, which contained a high proportion of blacks. He set up a system of drug treatment and day care centers.
Carter appealed to blacks perhaps even more strongly by making certain symbolic gestures. When black legislators had a party in their part of town, they sent a routine invitation to the Governor. Much to their surprise, he showed up, and word spread quickly that the Governor was eating chitlins with the brothers. In the state capitol in 1974, Carter placed a portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. on a wall amid pictures of other Georgia notables, while an integrated audience sang We Shall Overcome. Many blacks who did not vote for Carter swung over to his support. Now his presidential drive is endorsed by men as disparate as Martin Luther King Sr. and Henry Aaron.